Raising a White Girl: One Mother’s Work on Becoming & Raising an Anti-Racist

I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, but for the last few years I have taken some time to write some intentions for the upcoming year in the beginning of my planner. Most of the time they have been general – eat more veggies. Less screen time.  Sometimes they have been more specific – read 50 books, implement a daily yoga practice. After reflecting on my own white privilege, this year, one of my intentions is to work on becoming and raising an anti-racist. It sounds and feels like a big task. It’s heavy. It’s certainly not something I am going to “accomplish” by the end of the year. It’s not something I look at as even having an endpoint but my intention for this year is to start the journey. To put in the practice, to do the work.

You may be reading this thinking, “Do the work? You either are racist or you aren’t.” I hear you. I’ve been there. Hang in there with me for a few minutes and let me explain where I am coming from.

What feels like a lifetime ago I was sitting in a grad school class in Philadelphia. I was in my early twenties. I had grown up in a largely white suburb in New Jersey. Race wasn’t regularly part of my conversation. I knew racism still existed but I didn’t consider myself a racist. I thought that was good enough. Then I found myself sitting in this class which had race and racism as it’s focus. I found myself realizing how uncomfortable I was with the topic of race/racism. Not only because I was accepting I really knew nothing about it but because I realized I knew nothing about it because I didn’t have to. I knew I was privileged because my skin was white but I didn’t REALLY know my white privilege.

I didn’t understand how deep it ran.

I spent two semesters talking race on an in-depth level. Trying to understand the history and the current function of it. The oppression of systematic racism and how it played into my role as a social worker. How it impacted my clients. The piece I missed back then was my role as simply a human, as a white person.

Fifteen years later here I am. No longer working in social work but spending my days with my daughter. I am a white mother raising a white girl. And not that long ago I realized that when I stopped “being” a social worker, I stopped doing the work regularly. I stopped reading and learning about race, I stopped challenging myself in regards to it and most importantly, as it relates to my daughter, I stopped regularly talking about it and working against racism. I acted colorblind.

My whiteness has allowed for this. My privilege as a white mother of a white daughter has allowed me to not have to discuss race with her. And in doing so I realized I have been condoning that privilege in my own home. I have been condoning racism unintentionally. So I have started doing the work again because this world that we live in is not colorblind and there is no way my daughter will be. I need to be race conscious in my parenting. I need to help her make sense of it.

Here is how I am starting.

I am reading.

Not just books or resources about how to be a race conscious parent. But reacquainting myself with knowledge regarding the history of race in America and seeking out new non-fiction reads about systemic racism in our country. I am working to broaden my perspective by seeking out BIPOC (Black people, Indigenous People, People of Color) voices not only in non-fiction but also in the fiction that I am reading and that I am reading to my daughter.

I am listening.

I am exploring new podcasts providing diverse perspectives. I am listening to other people I know in person or via social media share their perspectives as BIPOC without needing do anything but listen.

I am engaging.

With myself and with others around the topic of race. Right now this includes working through the Me and White Supremacy Workbook by Layla F. Saad and participating in a race conscious parenting webinar next month. It also includes respectfully challenging other white people’s viewpoint on the topic.

I am talking to my daughter. I am naming race. I am using our everyday moments as opportunities for discussion. I am observing aloud. I am acknowledging what racism looks like, that it exists in many forms and that it is not okay.

I am exploring how to desegregate our life. Both the area of our part-time home in Western North Carolina and our traveling lifestyle of campground living results in us being surrounded most often by white people. Exploring how to surround ourselves regularly with more diversity in race is something we need to work on.

My work in race conscious parenting will not have an endpoint. I know that I have already made mistakes on this journey. I know that I will again. Probably many times.  So I am choosing to also give myself grace in addition to knowledge because practicing race conscious parenting, even if you are making mistakes, is better than not practicing it at all.

Have you joined me in practicing race conscious parenting? Will you? I’d love to have a conversation.